


little shit's never gonna learn

by ibangmyowndrum



Category: Political Animals
Genre: Depression, Drug Abuse, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 11:16:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1686389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibangmyowndrum/pseuds/ibangmyowndrum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I'm the one who found you barely alive.” - “I hope you're not expecting me to thank you for that because I never will.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	little shit's never gonna learn

**Author's Note:**

> I put all of the warnings in the tags, but just to be safe, potential content/trigger warnings are: attempted suicide, depression, drug abuse, and suicidal thoughts. If I've overlooked something, please let me know!

_It didn’t work._ He wakes up to a hospital room, to his father crumpled up in an armchair. It’s like last time, only last time it was his mama there with him, her head resting on his left arm, the one that didn’t have the IV. _It didn’t work._ That’s his first thought. And he doesn’t even feel disappointed, he just feels like a vast empty space filled with not caring. It’s not like he was even planning to kill himself this time, so it’s not like he failed.

His father wakes up when the nurse comes in to check on him. Of course, Bud checks _her_ out. She promises to get T.J. some breakfast, and a mug of coffee for “Mr President”. T.J. doesn’t care. He doesn’t care when his father puts his own tie around T.J.’s throat, like a noose made of put-togetherness before they walk through the onslaught of cameras and microphones. He doesn’t care when one reporter shoves a mic into his face and asks, “how does it feel to fail so bad at life you can’t even kill yourself?” He doesn’t care.

When he gets home, everybody is hesitantly cheerful. _You made it through_ , their stiff porcelain smiles seem to say _. I didn’t want to_ , he thinks. He escapes to the guest room they made up for him as soon as he possibly can without seeming too abrupt. Of course, Douglas follows him. Douglas, always right behind him, but somehow always right ahead of him in the race. Douglas, with his perfect face and his perfect hair and his perfect smile and his perfect wife. His perfect life. Douglas, poster child of their mother’s campaign, perfect son. Douglas, always on the straight and narrow. But most importantly on the _straight_.

T.J. knows his parents wish he wasn’t gay. He knows they don’t mean it like _that_ , or at least his mama doesn’t. She wishes he wasn’t gay for his own sake. As if that would solve all his problems. T.J. wishes things were different, too. He wishes his mama hadn’t found him just a little too soon last December. He wishes Bud hadn’t found him when he overdosed and called an ambulance. T.J. wishes his father had never been elected president, he wishes his mother wasn’t so ambitious, that she wasn’t such a brilliant politician. He wishes he hadn’t grown up in the White House. He wishes Sean hadn’t chosen cowardice over him. He wishes he wasn’t an addict. He wishes he could still feel something. He wishes he was dead. The one thing he doesn’t wish for is that he wasn’t gay.

Douglas is slouching in the armchair, the armchair he used to hide his stash in. T.J. spots a picture of the two of them. He experimentally tries to smile. It works. How curious.  “The summer before you went off to boarding school,” Douglas says. “I came out that year,” T.J. says. Because that’s what that year was about for him, and because sometimes that’s all he can remember even though that was far from the only thing that happened that year. He remembers calling Douglas multiple times a day and playing the “I’m older than you” card. “T.J., what’s up?” Douglas would say. And T.J. would reply, “you know, when I was your age…” and describe what he did three minutes ago.

“When I was your age, I sucked off a guy in the communal bathrooms,” he would say. “When I was your age, I made out with my hall master.” T.J. thought he was being hilarious. Douglas thought he was being stupid, but he never hung up on T.J., and T.J. never stopped getting a hoot out of it. Until he did.

That year was hard, and terrifying, but also wonderful. That year, kissing somebody still felt good. That year, sex was tentative and experimental and amazing. That year, he still thought that not caring would be so much easier. That year, he started doing drugs. That year, the drugs still helped him feel something.

Now, the drugs only help him care less about not caring.

+

Later that day, T.J. tries to go out. Clark stops him and when T.J. asks whether he’s on lockdown, nana joins them and looks at him with that sad, sad look in her eyes she had when he stole a cheque from her. He tells nana he needs to run some errands, he tells himself that. But of course nana sees right through him, because she’s a goddamn drunk and if anyone sees through the lies he tells himself, it’s her because she has told herself the same lies over and over. And he can be snarky with Clark, but when it’s nana, and nana is tearing up, so angry, so disappointed, he can’t. Nana sits down on the piano stool and he goes to her. “I’m scared too,” he says. “You were always so happy,” nana says, “what happened, T.J.?” and he realizes he doesn’t even know the answer. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know when happy, smile-y T.J. turned into this wreck. No, scratch that, he knows _when_. But he doesn’t know how. And he doesn’t know how to stop.

Oh, how he wishes he knew how to stop, but he will always be an addict. He will never be that kid again. He wanted to not care anymore, and now that he’s learnt how he’s also learnt that it doesn’t solve a fucking thing. He wishes he could care again.

He hugs nana, fragile little nana who is so messed up herself, and who hates him because of who he has become, and he hates himself for not caring.

After a while, nana wanders off, probably to her secret stash of booze, and T.J. takes her place at the piano. He plays a few random notes, and then he realizes they’re slowly merging into Bach’s Goldberg Variations. He gets through the entire piece, playing it from memory, playing it perfectly. He has never played like this before. He feels spent, and empty, and when he looks up, he sees nana standing there, smiling a little and crying a little. And all he can think is, _it’s not worth it. I don’t care._

**Author's Note:**

> I totally stole the "when I was your age thing" off of tumblr (http://ibangmyowndrum.tumblr.com/post/86582463467/doglets-if-you-are-the-older-twin-call-your) because I can so totally see T.J. doing this.


End file.
